Nadia Boulanger has a message for you on music and inspiration

“Can you live without music?” is the question from Nadia Boulanger, the legendary music teacher. When she talks about the fear of encouraging too many people, this is the teacher who taught Daniel Barenboim, Aaron Copland, Quincy Jones, Philip Glass, Astor Piazzolla — and the list goes on.

And this isn’t “those who can’t, teach” — on the contrary, Boulanger broke ground for women at the conductor’s podium, taking the baton in front of a number of the world’s best orchestras and premiering the likes of Stavinsky and Copland.

But, for all those moments when you might give up music, you know you’re in love when music is the thing you can’t live without. And that inability to be discouraged is maybe what is infinitely more valuable than whatever anyone imagines genius to be. (That’s not an inability to be frustrated – but an inability to be truly discouraged. There is a difference, naturally.)

Must watch (other lo-fi videos abound, so get ready for a YouTube hole):